8 Best Online Brokers For Beginners Of 2023 (2023)

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TD Ameritradehas made nurturing and guiding new investors a top priority. It offers a well-rounded online broker platform, with ample resources that we judged to be especially good for beginners.

The educational offerings at TD Ameritrade are second to none, ranging from in-person workshops to fully immersive curriculums, articles, videos and webcasts. Progress tracking and gamified elements help keep users engaged in courses, whose topics include everything from technical analysis and income investing to options trading.

The jewel in TD Ameritrade’s crown is the powerful yet user-friendly thinkorswim platform. thinkorswim has a built-in learning center that guides and educates users on key topics. It also offers chat rooms, which are a great way for beginners to interact with peers as well as learn from experts. In addition, users can practice with a paper trading account, which allows you to “invest” with pretend money and track your performance over time. If you need help mastering the platform, a dedicated trade desk is available to take your calls.

TD Ameritrade also demonstrated excellent customer service in our tests. The firm answered the majority of phone calls within minutes and emails within hours. Its chatbot, called Ted, is available for questions 24/7, and users can also chat with a live customer service agent.

Fidelity Investmentsis an all-around great choice for beginners, scoring well in every category of our review. We found that Fidelity is very competitive in the area of commissions and fees, and it provides a wealth of educational resources and dependable customer service.

Fidelity’s flagship Active Trader Pro platform is both feature rich and easy to use. It allows you to select between a number of preset layouts, including a basic layout for first-time users.

The platform’s News and Research section has some outstanding resources for beginners. The watchlist tool allows you to easily track the stocks you are most interested in, and it also enables you to set email and mobile alerts for events like a stock increasing above or falling below a set price level or certain percentage.

Beginners often don’t know what they want to invest in. Many want to avoid taking on the extra risk of putting their money into one or a few individual stocks. Fidelity makes it easy for new investors to identify the exchange traded funds(ETFs) and mutual funds that provide easy diversification and minimal risk.

Using the screener tool for mutual funds, users can search thousands of funds, including Fidelity’s own fee-free funds and those with low minimum investment requirements. Similarly, the ETF screener tool allows users to scan over 2,000 commission-free ETFs based on their interests.

Fidelity offers fractional share trading, which allows users to trade and invest in more than 7,000 stocks and ETFs using very small sums of money. This is a great way for beginners to get their feet wet and experience trading live while keeping their risk low.

Charles Schwabcombines competitive fees, a powerful platform and high-quality research and educational materials. A close contender for winning best brokers for beginners, Schwab outshone its rivals in the area of customer service.

The Schwab client portal is easy to navigate, and it was refreshing to see customer support options displayed prominently on every page.

In our tests, phone inquiries were resolved within minutes. Schwab’s human-operated chat support answered almost immediately. Representatives are knowledgeable, licensed professionals.

Schwab also provides the benefits of an extensive branch network across the United States, where clients can schedule one-on-one sessions with a financial professional.

Our tests showed that Fidelity Investments has excellent customer service, with agents going above and beyond to help. After navigating the menu, representatives answered the phone almost immediately. The use of voice ID in phone inquiries reflects Fidelity’s commitment to combatting fraud.

Chat and email support were also reliable in our survey, with fast, helpful responses. For those seeking more human interaction, Fidelity serves its customers through 12 regional offices and more than 190 investor centers in the United States.

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TD Ameritrade has raised the bar in terms of educational resources, offering content across a wide range of media. The firm has taken special care to ensure that the learning experience is immersive and interactive.

We appreciated the impressive range and depth of TD Ameritrade’s educational resources, in particular the TD Ameritrade Network, webcasts and immersive courses.

The TD Ameritrade Network is an online channel streaming financial news and educational content. The programming caters to both beginner and advanced traders. The Your First Trade show, for instance, walks you through specific examples of trades based on the latest market news. Morning Trade Live, which focuses on market commentary and trading strategies, is a great source of insights and ideas for new investors.

Regular webcasts hosted by industry professionals provide market commentary and information on how to manage your portfolio. Webcasts, which are offered live and recorded for later viewing, cover topics including active trading, portfolio management, investing and platform demos.

The online courses at TD Ameritrade are divided into lessons that make them easy to follow when your schedule allows. Users can also follow goal-based learning paths that combine courses with relevant webcasts and events. You can even get help from an education coach to guide your progress.

The Fidelity Investments Learning Center offers four-week virtual courses for beginners to improve their trading skills. Courses cover topics such as technical analysis, options trading, trading basics and how to use the Active Trader Pro platform.

Third-party research reports from Argus Analyst, Investars and many more are available within the client portal. Stock market beginners can take advantage of the screener section to research potential investments. Popular screeners include Big Buys / Best Bargains powered by Zacks. You can also create your own screeners.

The value of keeping track of your ideas and journaling which trades you make is widely recognized as key by successful traders. Fidelity’s notebook feature allows you to jot down ideas about stocks in one place, which are handily displayed in a list along with the current stock price. The notebook is also linked within the firm’s watchlist tool.

The Power E*TRADEplatform is intuitive and effortless to navigate. Features within the charting area, like technical pattern recognition, are easy to implement. You can launch live-streaming Bloomberg TV within the platform to stay on top of the latest news.

Webcasts with real-time analysis take place twice a week, providing users with a better understanding of the markets. The Knowledge section within the client portal includes guided overviews, articles and videos covering topics such as the basics of stock selection.

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Robinhood is on a mission to “democratize finance for all” by making it easier to access financial markets. Robinhood’s mobile app delivers on this promise as one the cleanest, easiest-to-use mobile investing platforms in our tests.

The Robinhood app’s layout is minimalistic but peppered with useful features. Lists such as “100 most popular,” “top movers” and “upcoming events” help users stay on top of daily events. News stories from Barron’s, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal are available within the app.

Robinhood introduced support for purchasing fractional shares and automatic dividend reinvestingin December 2019. Robinhood makes fractional share trading easy—when you go to place an order, you can elect to buy the stock by a number of shares or by a dollar amount.

The Robinhood Snacks daily newsletter and podcast are definite pluses for beginners, delivering financial news in cleverly written small bites. Morningstar Research Reports are available with a Robinhood Gold subscription, which costs $5 a month.